oh hello there I was just reading some of my old favorites so this past weekend
Logan came out and finally on the ninth try 20th Century Fox managed to make a
great movie with Wolverine in it and it got me thinking about other comic book
properties they own the rights to in particular the one that they just have
not been able to figure out at all the Fantastic Four right now we're
living in this crazy time with our comic book adaptations out on movies and TV
all the time like already this year we've had Lego Batman Legion and Logan
all three of which are really good and it drives me kind of nuts that of all
the Marvel adaptations there have been we still don't have a halfway decent
Fantastic Four movie because the Fantastic Four are arguably the most
important Marvel characters there are so brief history lesson for you non comic
book nerds back in 1961 before a spider-man or the x-men or the Avengers
Marvel was not publishing superhero comics Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had this
brilliant idea to create new superheroes but to set them apart from the
counterparts at DC they would give them personalities and relatable problems and
make them human beings that seems obvious now but at the time it was
revolutionary and this was so successful that it basically set the model for all
the stuff Marvel did afterwards so there would be no Marvel comics as we know it
if it weren't for the fat ass before there would be no Marvel Cinematic
Universe if it weren't for the Fantastic Four and so this is why it's such a
bummer that in this day when we've got a good ant-man movie we still don't have a
good fit out to for a movie and I don't think it's that hard obviously making
any movie is a challenge but this is not a profoundly difficult thing to adapt
this is not Watchmen and after the most recent Fantastic Four movie came out in
2015 was a spectacular critical and commercial failure all these articles
popped up being like dude the Fantastic Four does not work on film or is it
impossible to make a good Fantastic Four movie which is ridiculous of course it's
not a lot of people make the arguments that The Incredibles is the great
Fantastic Four movie and just argument that makes sense because it's the same
general cept and tone and it works brilliantly
so why wouldn't the actual thing work brilliantly as well so this past week I
went back and watched all three fantastic four movies that came out in
the past 12 years I left out the one from 94 because I mean it was never even
officially released so let's not count that so the three movies that 20th
Century Fox made they're all bad in different ways and they all miss some
fundamental things about what makes the Fantastic Four work so just in case some
Fox executives are cruising through YouTube and stumble across this video
I'm going to give you what I think are the four yes four key lessons to
remember if you want to make a good Fantastic Four movie here we go lesson
one skip the origin there's this common idea that people are sick of origin
stories and movies which is kind of true although Doctor Strange didn't origin
story and works just fine but that's not why I'm saying this here the thing is
the Fantastic Four might have the least importance origin story of any
superheroes a lot of characters like spider-man or Batman they'll have this
key event in their origin you know like Bruce Wayne's parents it he murdered our
uncle then being murdered that defined them as people and radically change
their outlook on the world they learn a lesson from it and that sets them on
their path to fighting crime and saving the world but the Fantastic Four don't
really have that see you before they got superpowers they were adventurous
scientists who stole a prototype spaceship to go up into space where they
were then bombarded by cosmic rays so they were already doing big exciting
adventurous exploratory stuff before they got superpowers and then after they
had superpowers they kept doing the same thing just on a larger scale because now
they have the abilities with which to you know defend the planet so they're
basically the same people before and after they get powers there's not much
of a character arc there so why do two of the movies made in the past 12 years
tell this same story so if I are making this movie here's how I would do it
early on in the movie you would introduce the Baxter building which is
the big building in Manhattan where the Fantastic Four live and work and because
they are famous public figures it's a tourist attraction and so you'd show a
tour group walking through the lobby and on one of the screens there you have
one of those videos that plays on a loop and telling the origin of the Fantastic
Four how they went into space we're bombarded by cosmic rays and gained
amazing powers and you have the tour group members like looking up and taking
pictures with oh and there you go in the span of maybe 20 seconds you have
communicated how the fast important got their powers who they are their place in
the world how the world views them that they are famous all of the stuff done
and you can move on and tell a real story with the rest of the movie lesson
to get the characters right now this seems like a no-brainer because in any
movie you want the characters to be good and these guys like all the big Marvel
superheroes have clearly defined personalities and dynamics between each
of them because the key thing about the majestic 4 is that they're a family even
though there are all adults they function as a family and each one has a
specific role that they play in there so Reed Richards he is the brilliant kind
of like closed off emotionally kind of reserved obsessive super genius father
figure su is the rational compassionate
mother figure that basically is the glue that holds them all together Johnny
Storm and Ben Grimm they function kind of as brothers as the children of the
group Johnny is immature and cocky and you know attention-seeking and Ben is
gruff and quick-tempered and you know kind of sad and sweet inside in the
movies that have been made on the - Tim story directed blogs like kind of
generally had the ideas of the characters but Reed and Sue were totally
lacking in personality or does these bland people into one directed by Josh
Trank they're kind of all friends although do betim sue ever meet in that
movie up buddy has a lot of problems so if you want the Fantastic Four to work
you gotta get the family right you have to have the dynamics between all the
characters way they bicker and have conflicts but ultimately love each other
the Fantastic Four is basically about a family that goes on adventures so if you
don't get the family right if they don't feel like a family it's not gonna work
lesson three hold off on Doctor Doom it frustrates me to no end that all three
of the fantastic four movies that have been made in the past 12 years have
Doctor Doom as the and they have all treated him terribly
because a look dr. doom is probably the greatest comic book supervillain of all
times yeah like I like the Joker and a bunch of others too but doom is in his
own league like on a totally surface level he wears this big awesome tune of
armor he lives in a castle where he rules over an Eastern European country
he has an army of robots that look like him called doom bots he's basically
Darth Vader four but from before Darth Vader came along and also maybe cooler
probably don't you dig below the surface he just gets more interesting like as a
child he grew up in this tribe of Romani people and then he would turn out to be
a science genius went to the US and went to college where he met Reed Richards
but didn't like him and then there was this accident where he got scarred he
blamed Reed for it and he like fled back to Europe and became dr. doom and just
took over his home country there's a common idea about the greatest villains
being the ones who believe themselves to be the hero and there's no better
example of this than dr. doom see dr. doom truly believes the world
will be better if he rules it he's as smart as Reed Richards so he's just
super genius but he's driven by ego and need to control things and look he rules
a country already and he's good at it yeah happy he rules with an iron fist
but his people don't hate him it's like a functioning country and there are
stories like the recent secret Wars by Jonathan Hickman and his honorific where
Doom actually does rule the world after becoming a god and he's again not bad at
it it's like a a functioning world so doom is his fascinating figure where
he's this genius who lusts for power but who also might have a point and this is
why it's so disappointing if you look at how he's been handled on-screen in the
two Tim story movies he was basically just Norman Osborn he was an evil guy
who owned a company and then got superpowers and started murdering the
people on his board who wanted to fire him and in the Josh Trank one he only
shows up as Doctor Doom in the last 20 minutes but he was to destroy the world
because he loves his new interdimensional rock planet better I
don't get so if you're making a Fantastic Four movie here's how I think
you should handle do don't make him the villain in the first movie you just have
him like be a background player have a pop up in a couple scenes because he
a world figure he's a part of their lives but he's not the main guy so
haven't just be a presence and then in the second movie since he's already been
developed the groundwork has been laid then you can tell your big epic Doctor
Doom story finally lesson four make it big the elevator pitch for the Fantastic
Four is basically a family that goes on big crazy sci-fi adventures
they're not even technically superheroes they're more like explorers and most of
the great Fantastic Four comics they're constantly going to amazing new places
like other planets or other dimensions or even through time the whole thing is
driven by this massive relentless imagination which is why it's so
frustrating that the movies they've made are so lacking in imagination in the
first one from 2005 they briefly spend a few minutes on the world's most boring
space station and then spent the rest of the movie in New York in the sequel they
go to London and then they go to a forest and in the 2015 version they
spend most of the movie in science labs military bases and occasionally go to
their super lame version of the negative zone which is just a big barren rock
planet so this is just ignoring a big part of what makes the Fantastic Four
special that there are explorers and adventurers who are seeking out amazing
new sights and saving the world with huge new sci-fi ideas there's a great
story arc from John Byrne's run in the 80s where the whole family goes on a
road trip through the negative zone and each issue brings a whole new world to
explore obviously a big difference between movies and comics is that comics
don't really have to worry about budget it doesn't cost anything to draw a crazy
alien planet so I realized that when I say make it big that also kind of means
make it super expensive but remember these days you could do anything with
visual effects so if you're going to make a Fantastic Four movie I think it's
worth spending the extra money to get some amazing spectacle just embrace the
big out-there sci-fi stuff like I think a major factor that contributed to the
success of guardians of the galaxy was that James Gunn just steered into the
weird stuff and put it all up there on screen and Fantastic Four needs to do
the same thing it doesn't really work as like a small-scale superhero movie or a
grounded gritty dark sci-fi thing it's got to be big and colorful and crazy
honestly thinks Star Wars in terms of the amount of new world
new creatures visuals that been moving these to deliver now I have no idea
what's actually happening behind the scenes of Fox with the Fantastic Four
property maybe nothing but I hope that they don't think people didn't like
those movies because the characters aren't appealing the characters are
super appealing those movies missed what is appealing about them for nerds like
me this is a ridiculous time to be alive
like in movies and TV we're constantly getting faithful quality adaptations of
the stuff that we've always loved that we never dreamed what happened like I
still am amazed that there is a faithful good Doctor Strange movie so look I will
be the first to admit that we're totally spoiled and I don't want to seem greedy
by demanding a good Fantastic Four movie 1 we've already got quality adaptations
of basically every other Marvel and easy character but look unless people
suddenly stop going to see comic book movies which is probably not going to
happen anytime soon eventually we're going to get another
Fantastic Four movie it's going to happen and I really hope that when it
does the people making it take into account these lessons are just aware of
them on their own because this could be a great movie it could be really really
good and I hope I get to see it that's all I have to say on the matter so if
you watch the somewhere like you know I've never read if it has to for comment
well you should because there's a lot of great works most of the really good ones
we're done in long runs by single writer or artist teams like there's the classic
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby run which is great there is the one that I grew up
with the early 2000s the Mark Waid and like where a girl run which is fantastic
there's the really excellent John Byrne run from the 80s and more recently there
is the Jonathan Hickman run from like I think it ended like a few years ago
anyway those are all on Amazon and at your local comic book store in your
local book store and so comic books are great and I think you should go read
them anyway the outro so if you like what we're doing and you want to help us
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new video next Wednesday